Third Sunday in Lent – C1

Third Sunday in Lent – C1

Years C
Isaiah 55:1-9

In just how much of the image of G*D are we made? Are we partners with G*D or just associates? Co-creators? Just how much higher are G*D's ways and thoughts than our own?

All too often we turn this into an eternal co-dependency rather than a movement toward holiness for both G*D and ourselves - a revelation or wholeness of both and all. One book that talks about the maturing of G*D (not needing to show off) is The Disappearance of God: A Divine Mystery by Richard Elliott Friedman. Here is a sample, "It is ironic that, starting with Bible scholars, we have begun to use the intimate name of God again, especially since the nineteenth century, precisely in the period of acknowledged divine hiddenness. Let us hope that we are not using it in vain, but that we are moving closer to the entity that the name represents. The name Yahweh probably means "that which causes to be." And that which causes to be is what we are seeking. It is what we have been seeking all along. We may be very close to it. There is some likelihood that, as some of the conscious matter of the universe, we are created more in the divine image than we have suspected. There is some likelihood that the universe is the hidden face of God." (p 284)

The holiness questions of theosis, sanctification, perfection are importantly applied here.

= = = = = = =

prevenient grace
never so far away
a turn toward Being-In-Love
is always available

when might the lord not be found
if present in grace
if present in ghenna
if present in Dachau and Sudan

when is the lord absent
in towers tumbling
in buses crashing
in nations warring

since salvation is universal
and assured for all
we might as well get on with it
preemptive mercy ho!